Help files – A question of trust

Last month, Forrester Research released results from a survey on how much consumers trust different sources for information. They didn’t include online Help or knowledge bases in the survey, so we don’t know how well or badly they would have come out in the survey. They found independent (non-corporate) information were the most trustworthy sources…. Read more »

When you need Help, do you press F1 or search Google?

I was at two clients in Cambridge earlier in the week, where the conversation turned to the Internet generation and how they search for information. Both publish their user documentation on their Web site, as well publish traditional PDFs and online Help files. The first client said that they’d found from their recent customer usability… Read more »

I’m a Technical Writer – Dispelling the myths

Technical Writers (aka Technical Authors, Content Wranglers and Documentation Managers) have an unfair image as probably the last type of person you’d like to meet at a party. Fictional writers tend to portray them as agoraphobic social misfits. We aim to challenge this image, by showing technical writers in a different light – by posting… Read more »